How I (Heather) came to appreciate French Social Theorists in Spain

A long time ago in a faraway land called graduate school, I encountered French social theorists. I can’t say I remember much: I know I read Foucault, and I know one of the main messages was something to the effect of “cultural tastes signify social class and membership in social class” and “the U.S. is increasingly determining cultural tastes.” Later, a colleague of mine (David K. Cohen) characterized Foucault as “a cabal of Frenchmen out to vex Americans” (try reading even a page of Foucault!) and I pretty much agreed with his casting.

Now that I’m living abroad, however, you can really see the influence of the U.S. (or Great Britain, perhaps) on store names (Nine, City 100, N.Y. Factory, Look & Find, Curves for Women), school names (we live near “Brains” high school) and t-shirts (mainly focused around NYC sports teams, but some also featuring semi-sensical English expressions). Without asking about the reasons for these names/t-shirts/NYC paraphernalia, I can’t know why there’s this emphasis. But perhaps Foucault had a point.